Tito Speaks!!! Michael Jackson's Intervention!!!

In his first interview since his brother’s death, Tito Jackson opens up about the family’s intervention to stop Michael‘s addiction to painkillers.

Here are some HIGHlights:

On Michael’s secret habit:
“I never saw him on drugs. Not once. He deliberately did it away from us. He didn’t want his family to know anything about that part of him. He did almost everything in his power to make sure we didn’t know.”

On the intervention:
“We had to act. It was me, my sisters Janet, Rebbie and La Toya and my brothers, Jackie and Randy. We bust right into the house and he was surprised to see us to say the least. We went into one of his private rooms and had a discussion with him. Some of us were crying. We kept asking him if it was true what we had heard that he was using drugs. He kept denying it. He said we were over-reacting. We also spoke to a doctor and he assured us it was not the situation. He said he was there to make sure Michael was healthy.

On his skepticism:
“We didn’t know what to believe. We didn’t take what Michael said as the truth. We talked about it again and again for hours but we just couldn’t get through to him. After that occasion we tried many times but his team of people just shut us out, they would not let us close. They literally shut us out. I don’t know if they were just doing their job or if it they were part of some kind of conspiracy.I do know that Michael would say to them ‘I don’t care who it is, don’t let anybody on my property if they haven’t called first’.”

On the pop star’s handlers:
“In the first few intervention attempts his staff and security would not let us on the property.
They would block the road into Neverland with other vehicles so we couldn’t drive in, all kinds of crazy things. I don’t know whose instructions those were but that’s what happened. I went up there twice trying to get through before we finally did.

On the start of Michael’s addiction:
“He had been taking pain medicine because of the burns to his scalp and evidently he got some type of addiction from it. I understood he had got help for that addiction and after that I was always told he was doing ok. Before the intervention attempt I would never go to him and say ‘Are you still doing it?’ I would just say ‘Are you sure you’re fine?’ He’d say ‘I’m fine, TT’. If he said he was ok I believed him. He knew what I meant, he knew I was talking about drugs.

On LeToya’s allegations that her brother was murdered:
“I don’t know whether he was killed or not. But I would say that sometimes he had people around him that were not in his best interests. Whether his death was an accident or whether it was deliberate, something has gone on and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

On plastic surgery:
├óΓé¼┼ôMichael’s plastic surgery started around 1979, when he went solo. It was just something that a lot of entertainers were doing at the time.It started with just an alteration of his nose. He never told me why, but I think he thought it would improve his looks. It wasn├óΓé¼Γäót a big deal having lip jobs, nose jobs or butt implants, especially living in California. He was trying to make himself attractive to himself. We all look at ourselves different. Everyone has a personal preference.

So sad.

[Image via WENN.]